Hazelnut Pancakes

This morning my wife flashed her big blue eyes at me and asked if I would make pancakes.  She didn’t mean just any old pancakes from a box, these are Hazelnut Banana Blueberry pancakes made with a hazelnut breakfast mix from Hazelnut Hills in Oregon.

We first learned about Hazelnut Hills products when our friends Marcia and David sent our family a gift pack of various items for Christmas.  The pancakes and waffles that we make from the mix are so good, that we continue to visit their store or purchase by mail order several packages of the mix at a time so that we don’t run out.

This recipe is very easy, 2-cups of hazelnut breakfast mix, 1 1 /2-cups milk, 1 egg, a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil and stir until all the ingredients are broken up and wet.  To this basic recipe, I add a few drops of vanilla extract, a crushed banana and about two cups of room temperature blue berries.

In the summer, we always purchase pre-picked or go to a u-pick farm to get several pounds of blueberries.  We rinse the blueberries, remove any lingering stems, and then freeze the blueberries, keeping them frozen until we need them in a recipe.

On our large non-stick Toastmaster griddle, I usually cook 4 to 8 pancakes at a time.  Topped with a little margarine and syrup, pancakes are one of our favorite breakfast foods.

Now don’t tell my wife, but when it is time to make the last pancake, usually all the blueberries are already cooked, so I will grab about 10 chocolate chips and sprinkle them into the batter once it is on the griddle.  This special pancake is always mine!

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell